Since the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s inception, the Defense Department and industry have struggled to wrestle down its price tag to roughly $80 million or $100 million per jet, depending on the model. It’s been a grueling battle involving inflation, supply chain crunches, evolving requirements, and developmental problems and remains ongoing to this day. But now, looming over the horizon, Air Force leaders face an even harder challenge: Developing a sixth-generation fighter, a successor to the F-22, that can be produced at or below the cost of an F-35. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has said he wants to see the service’s next-generation fighter jet come in cheaper per unit than the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But outside experts warn that costs cuts could sacrifice capability. At the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Space Cyber conference in September, Kendall doubled down.
The Air Force wants NGAD to replace the F-22 Raptor fleet sometime in the 2030s. For years, Air Force leaders emphasized how vital NGAD would be to win future wars and it sought to retire older air frames to free up money to develop the system. But NGAD’s cost has become its Achilles’ heel, and rumors began to spread earlier this year that the program was in trouble. Kendall told Defense News in June that the service was still planning to build a next-generation fighter, but that it needed a redesign to bring its price tag down and allow the Air Force to buy it in significant numbers. The Air Force envisions NGAD as a “family of systems” that include not only the sixth-generation crewed fighter, but also multiple autonomous drones known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA, along with advanced sensors, weaponry and other technology.
Whatever NGAD ends up looking like going forward, it faces multiple headwinds that could make bringing it into the F-35′s price range difficult, if not impossible. The Air Force has benefited by not being the only customer for the F-35, allowing for economies of scale. By the mid-2040s, the Defense Department plans to have purchased about 2,500 F-35s for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps combined. But the Air Force does not plan to sell NGAD to other countries, and it’s not working directly with the Navy on a sixth-generation fighter.
